Introduction. This study offers an analysis of the polycode strategy reperesentation in modern English-language fiction. The article aims at examining polycode strategy as a textual strategy in contemporary fiction. The research focuses on the attempt to investigate the role of implicit and explicit mechanisms of polycode strategy implementation in the works by such writers as Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, and Markus Zusak. The relevance of the study is accounted for by the increasing role of polycode strategy in modern fiction; nonetheless, the status of the polycode phenomenon in the semantic structure of a literary text has not been established yet. The article puts forward and proves a hypothesis of the polycode mechanisms used in modern fiction as a text-building strategy. Polycode strategy is implemented by authors of fiction both in its traditional implicit form and in more experimental forms, referred to in the study as an explicit mode of polycode strategy.

Methodology and sources. The methods used in this work include elements of linguosemiotic, cognitive discourse and stylistic analyses. The empirical basis of the work consists of text fragments by contemporary English authors. The research uses the novels by Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, and Markus Zusak to showcase a range of polycode mechanisms employed by the writers of the XX–XI centuries.

Results and discussion. The polycode strategy in a literary text could be represented by an author in either an implicit or an explicit form, depending on their choice of bound (verbally) and free semiotic resources. The usage of verbally bound resources, such as font, colour, page design, represents implicit mechanisms of implementing the polycode strategy, whereas the introduction of photographs, diagrams, and figures into a literary text indicates the explicit character of the polycode strategy.

Conclusion. In fiction, polycode strategy is viewed as a text-building strategy implemented in implicit and/or explicit forms. Depending on the interpretation program employed by the author, polycode strategy is expressed in different ways (via semiotically bound and unbound resources, in an implicit or explicit form, respectively), and it also serves a multitude of functions in fiction ensuring its coherence. The research has made an original contribution to Polycode Studies by identifying such textual functions of the polycode strategy as attractive, expressive, characterizing, ludic, and emotive.